This Is Not a Mixtape

"There's already a cassette industry, but it's pretty subterranean," Thurston Moore told CBC radio last summer. That means if you haven't busted out your cassette deck in a while, or if you never had a cassette deck to begin with, there's a whole wide underground world of tapes and tape labels for you to explore. The following list isn't intended to be definitive, any more than cassettes are supposed to sound like CDs. Still, here's a modest sampling of noteworthy tapes, labels that release tapes, and places you can find tapes, just to get you started.

Ten Recent Tapes Worth Seeking Out

Washed Out: High Times[Mirror Universe; 2009]This cassette from Georgia's Ernest Greene has more of the syrupy synths, mush-mouthed harmonies, and fractured grooves of the bedroom producer's breakthrough Life of Leisure EP.

Ducktails: Acres of Shade [Arbor; 2008]You can get a better feel for the full breadth of this side project of Real Estate's Matt Mondanile on last year's self-titled and Landscapes LPs, but Acres of Shade is perfect for tape: two sides, two languid ambient tracks. They sound like the instrumental interludes on Deerhunter's Cryptograms, except you can take summer-afternoon naps to them.

Pill Wonder: Jungle/Surf[Wild Animal Kingdom Records; 2009]These playpen-safari lo-fi pop ditties from Seattle's Will Murder-- first issued on a Olympia, Wash., label run by Dana Jewell-- are making the transition from cassette to vinyl thanks to Underwater Peoples.

King Tuff: Was Dead [Colonel; 2008; cassette reissue Burger Records; 2009]Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff, has since signed to Sub Pop with his other band, Happy Birthday, but don't miss the shambolic garage-pop of Was Dead, reissued last year on Burger after its initial 2008 release on Colonel.

M. Pyres & the Skygaze Family Band: Apart the Echo [Patient Sounds; 2009]Colorado is the home of Candy Claws, Weed Diamond, and this ambitious project led by Patient Sounds' Matthew Sage. Alternating between mists of feedback and folk-flecked post-punk clambering, Apart the Echo is best suited for cassette, where you can't conveniently skip tracks. "Eat the orange, just like the apple."

Hal McGee: The Man With the Tape Recorder [self-released; 2007]Recent interest in vinyl and cassettes naturally begets jokes about what's next-- eight-tracks, laser discs?-- but Hal McGee, a pioneer in the cassette medium during the 1980s, has already moved to a format that he says actually predates portable cassette players: microcassettes. Recorded and edited solely in that medium, The Man With the Tape Recorder is a musique concrete art piece, documenting the wide-ranging observations and scattered lo-fi sonic experiences of a man with, yeah, a microcassette recorder.

Bridgetown RecordsHailing from east of Los Angeles, Kevin Greenspon's label is probably best known for the Cloud Nothings tape, but it has also released raw, witty naive pop by him and Daniel Johnston-ish wunderkind Nicole Kidman (no, not that Nicole Kidman), among others.

Burger RecordsNot only have this two-man Fullerton, Calif., label put out noteworthy cassettes by a handful of bands that went on to bigger labels (King Tuff, Jaill, Harlem), they also recently did the unthinkable in this day and age: They opened a record and cassette store.

Captured TracksBetter known for CDs and vinyl by the likes of Dum Dum Girls, Woods, and Ganglians, Brooklyn-based Blank Dogs' label has also put out cassettes by founder Mike Sniper's band and former Ariel Pink bandmate Gary War.

Folding CassettesThe San Francisco label run by Sic Alps' Mike Donovan has released noise, punk, and experimental sounds by Yellow Swans, Telepathe, and Ben Chasny aka Six Organs of Admittance. Donovan says Sic Alps' Fool Mags cassette is still in print and a double-LP Greatest Hits of Folding Cassettes is due this year on Yik Yak.

Fuck It Tapes With Fuck It Tapes and its Woodsist sublabel, Jeremy Earl-- frontman for Brooklyn-based Woods-- has played a key role in cassettes' transition from primarily a noise/avant-garde medium to a format used for lo-fi rock, noise-pop, and shitgaze. Fuck It Tapes releases include Vivian Girls, Wavves, Excepter, Meneguar, Magik Markers, Jana Hunter, Yellow Swans, Blank Dogs, the Fresh & Onlys, Pocahaunted, and of course, Earl's own band.

Mirror UniverseThe Charleston, S.C., operation of Ben Ellenburg and Ryan Moran started out with the idea of being a drone label. But after a single drone release, Mirror Universe has become one of the preeminent purveyors of that psychedelic synth-pop known variously as chillwave, glo-fi, or hypnagogic pop. Last year came releases from Washed Out, Toro Y Moi, Weed Diamond, and Active Child, with tapes by the likes of Dead Gaze and Darby Crash expected this year.

Not Not FunComing out of the noise/psychedelic scene in tandem with Night People, Fuck It, and Arbor, Los Angeles-based Not Not Fun has moved a bit toward sunny tunefulness with the rest of the cassette format, releasing music by not only Pocahaunted, Cloudland Canyon, Foot Village, Wet Hair, Charalambides, Shearing Pinx, and Christina Carter, but also Abe Vigoda and Ducktails.

Paradise Vendors / Italian Beach BabesLondon's Paradise Vendors and Italian Beach Babes are two separate labels, but on March 1 they're releasing a joint 12", so it makes sense to mention them together. Both have released music by label bosses' Male Bonding (who last year signed to Sub Pop) and Graffiti Island bands, including a GG Allin tribute split with Pens. The upcoming compilation also showcases such scruffy noise-pop outfits as Spectrals and Teen Sheikhs.

RRRecordsAlthough they might raise an eyebrow at the comparison, in many ways this label run by Ron Lessard out of Lowell, Mass., is the grandaddy of the recent uptick in cassette releases. Concentrating on noise and experimental music, the label's discography includes Merzbow, Prurient, and Wolf Eyes, among many others.

Scotch TapesAl Bjornaa runs his one-man label out of Batchawana Bay, Ontario-- when he's not working as a fisherman. In addition to Oneida, Scotch Tapes' roster has included Karl Blau and even Mike Watt.